Regeneration

Regeneration is one of the many Unit Abilities available in Master of Magic. The Regeneration ability gives a unit several extremely useful advantages, and is often considered one of the best Unit Abilities in the game.

During combat, whenever the Regenerating unit is injured, it will regain exactly 1 Hit Point at the end of each turn. Multi-Figure units may even recover lost Figures as a result of this automatic healing. If the Regenerating unit survives a battle, it is then completely healed of allDamage. Multi-Figure units will also regain all lost Figures as a result.

In addition, if the Regenerating unit is destroyed during battle, but its army manages to win that battle, the unit is automatically restored to life - with full health as described above! Finally, the unit is also completely healed at the end of each game turn, and will completely ignore spells that would cause it direct Damage on the overland map.

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For most of us, avoiding injuries is vital - a damaged or lost body part may never be restored, so any serious damage we take can be potentially life-threatening. Not so for a Regenerating unit, whose organs will actually grow back.

The Regenerating unit's wounds will rapidly close up and disappear, its lost limbs will literally re-sprout, and it is even capable of returning to life - if given enough time for its system to "reboot" once its body has been fully restored. The only way to truly kill off a Regenerating unit would be to hack it to little bits - or disintegrate it into component particles. Otherwise it will simply come back for more, again and again.

During combat, as long as a Regenerating unit is injured, it will automatically be healed of 1 at the end of every combat turn. This occurs at the very end of the turn - after all friendly units have moved or skipped their turn, and before the enemy units begin to move.

This can potentially restore the unit to full health, if it can go long enough without suffering any additional Damage.

Multi-Figure units with Regeneration may regain lost Figures thanks to the per-turn healing described above. This occurs when the unit is still missing one or more of its Figures, but all live Figures are already at full health. The next Hit Point restored by Regeneration at the end of the turn will cause one lost Figure to come back to life, with 1 Hit Point.

This process repeats itself until all Figures have been restored to life, and all are at full health - at which point the unit is fully healed and will not Regenerate any further - until the next time it is injured.

For our example, imagine that the unit just took 8 points of Damage from some attack. This is enough to kill off 2 Elven Lords and severely injure a third one. The unit now has only 2 figures left alive, with one of them at full health (3) and one severely injured (1), for a total of 4.

The unit now does the sensible thing and withdraws, keeping some distance from its enemies, in order to let Regeneration run its course. Over the next 8 rounds, the ability will try to restore the unit back to full health, by healing it 1 Hit Point each turn.

TurnsElapsed

What happens

Current Situation

# of LiveFigures

Health oflast Figure

Total UnitHealth

0

Immediately after taking damage, the unit only has 2 figures left, with one at full health (3) and another severely injured (1).

2

1

4

Regeneration begins...

1

The injured Elven Lord is healed by 1.

2

2

5

2

The injured Elven Lord is healed by another 1 and is now fully healed.

Whenever a unit possessing Regeneration survives a battle, it is immediately returned to full health once the battle ends. Naturally, this can only occur if the unit was on the winning side, or if it successfully retreated from the battle. Multi-Figure units will also have all lost Figures restored, each at full health. Thus, a Regenerating unit can go from battle to battle virtually unhindered. However much Damage it took during the battle, that Damage disappears instantly as soon as combat is over.

Even if the Regenerating unit falls in battle, it can be automatically returned to life and full health at the end of the battle - but only if its army won that battle. Winning, in this case, includes the enemy fleeing partway through and, for a defending army, a draw (the battle ending as a result of its 50-turn limit). It does not include cases where the Regenerating unit's own army has fled the engagement, successfully or otherwise, or timed out battles if the unit is on the attacking side.

This is one of the reasons why an entire army of Regenerating units is so difficult to defeat. As long as one unit manages to stay alive to the end (and win the battle), all other units are restored to life - with full health - and can immediately proceed to the next battle as though nothing had happened!

Regenerating units normally also heal to full at the end of each overland turn, not just after every battle. But there is more to them than just that. They will also completely ignore any "conventional" Damage resulting from spells that would affect them on the overland map. This includes both Instant Spells, Town Curses, and Global Enchantments. They may still be hurt by magic that destroys whole Figures, and should a damage spell have additional effects, those will not be ignored either; but the direct Physical Damage is always instantly healed back.

Should they suffer casualties as a result of a Resistance-based spell affecting individual Figures (e.g. Death Wish), these will only be restored to life at the end of the overland turn (or after a victorious battle). Such spells are still capable of completely annihilating a Regenerating unit, but to accomplish this, every Figure in the unit must fall to such a spell on the same turn, otherwise the unit will fully heal at the end of the turn.

Death creatures, including the Undead, may not normally be healed by any healing spells, and do not heal naturally each overland turn as other units do. This somewhat balances out their overall strength and abundance. Nonetheless, such units still benefit from Regeneration just like any other Regenerating unit.

Regeneration, therefore, is one of the best ways to keep Death units alive without the need to constantly replace them. A Death-based army with access to the Regeneration spell is extremely dangerous.

There are 9 different units in the game that possess Regeneration by default. 3 of these are Fantastic Units, and no less than 6 are Normal Units from the Troll race, which has Regeneration as a racial advantage.

Both Shadow Demons and Werewolves are Death creatures, which do not heal normally and cannot be targeted by healing spells - this makes Regeneration particularly valuable for them. It may also be worth noting that War Mammoths, despite belonging to the Troll race, do not possess Regeneration.

When cast on the overland map, Regeneration has a basic Casting Cost of 300. It has a lingering effect, so that the targeted unit will keep its Regeneration ability so long as the spell continues to exist. This requires a hefty Upkeep Cost of 10 to be paid at the start of each turn.

Alternatively, it is possible to cast Regeneration during combat as an impromptu Unit Enchantment. In this case the spell's basic Casting Cost is a much lower 60, but its effects will only last until the end of the battle. Since neither the spell nor the effect will carry over to the overland map, there is no associated Upkeep Cost with this version of the spell. However, Regeneration cast in battle does still provide its end-of-combat effects before fading away, but only for the victorious army (i.e. a fleeing unit will not be healed as it would be with the natural ability).

Unfortunately there are only 2 items with this trait among the game's pre-defined Magical Item database, which makes them rather rare in terms of acquisition through either Treasure or wandering Merchants. Crafting an Accessory with this ability requires 6 NatureSpellbooks, and can only be accomplished via the Create Artifact spell. On the other hand, knowledge of the actual spell is not a pre-requisite for imbuing this Item Power.

After transformation, the Werewolves are essentially an entirely different unit - which possesses Regeneration among its many other abilities. Therefore, instead of actually adding Regeneration to a Normal Unit, it replaces the unit entirely with Werewolves - who always possess Regeneration.

In games played without the Unofficial Patch 1.50, combat healing effects, including Regeneration, are prone to a bug that can occasionally grant extra temporary maximum Hit Points to a unit. This occurs whenever a Figure in a unit is revived with at least as much health missing as the unit's maximum Figure count. Naturally, this only affects Multi-Figure units, and only those that have a higher Hit Point per Figure amount than maximum Figures, such as the Hydra, for example.

In addition to the transient increase of maximum Figure health, the bug will typically also cause the affected unit to regain more Hit Points in total than intended. For a more detailed description of how this happens, see the Known Bugs section of the Healing spell article.